All That Jazz About ‘Finding Yourself’

It feels like 3:15 AM. It’s dark. You can’t even see the two roads divulging into the forest, leave alone choosing the one less travelled by. It feels like a late-night party. You are with people-lots of them. You are grooving to rhythm, plastering a smile until you no longer can, just because your head feels too heavy.

And here, if you excuse yourself to catch a whiff of fresh air staring far across with a feeling of bewilderment, longingness and wandering- it’s time.

It’s time to come home Baby.

The words may or not resonate literally to you. But if you are at this point where everything seems to go perfectly well for you, and yet you feel restless, unsatiated and like a messed-up Titanic wreck deep inside the ocean- you are at the brink of ‘finding yourself’.

Congratulations!

After zillions of time carelessly mentioning ‘I found myself’ all over, I finally took myself aside, and asked, What do you mean by finding yourself?

After a moment of blankness, I thought about it, hard. And then in turn, I posed three questions to myself.

If you happen to find a career of your dreams, do you find yourself?

If you happen to find the love of your life, do you find yourself?

If you happen to find money, fame, social acceptance, do you really find yourself?

And my answers were- NO, NO and hell NO!

What fools are we to believe that any external force can give us the answers to questions we ourselves are clueless about. We keep looking outside never once asking ourselves, ‘Hey, what is it?’

A dream career, love, social acceptance, attractive face, money- these are all baits at the end of the day. They might lure you to grow closer to yourself or their hunger can drift you way apart from yourself.

Travelling is said to be one of the most proven source of ‘finding oneself’. The artistic world of movies and books have glorified it off-the limits. What we don’t understand is that a new physical space or new faces cannot give us answers our soul has been seeking.

What they, however, can do is open a door for you to sit and have a coffee with yourself.

This is the door which leads you back to be who you were, and you are suppose to be.

Years of growing up changes our inner core. It tells us to behave in a certain manner, fit in a definite place and act exactly the way people around us do. That’s what becomes a societal norm we are suppose to be a part of.

But then a thirst of fresh air spoils our party.

Sooner or later, our eccentric personalities suffocate our souls to be out there and demand us to own who we are. The fight is intensely conflicting; especially so when we are caught off-guard in a place we were so comfortably settled in-as if was home.

But the truth is, it was not. There comes a time when you can no longer resonate with others. You tried your best to fit in, but you can no longer put a fake front.

Maybe, you were born to be a misfit.

May be, we are suppose to find the parts of us which do not fit.

And This is where you find yourself-literally.

But now that you have, you need to stop being embarrassed about it. Doubts, criticism and self-consciousness have lived within us for so long, that it has become a part of us.

Break-free- and God knows how hard it is to come out of the shell we’ve made for ourselves.

But you need to. You need to see the light within you. You need to appreciate yourself for things you never thought about. Don’t be shy about owning up to be who you are.

You need to know the art of loving.

Because if you don’t, you are building high walls around you. The walls are keeping out everyone, even the ones who are not just capable, but more than willing to give you all their love.

Give them a chance- by giving yourself a chance.

The truth is, you will see no love, till you feel love inside.

As cliched as it is, finding yourself is all about digging out the real you from the burials of superficiality and ignorance. Acceptance and cultivating self-love is exactly what finding oneself is all about. The rest follows- it truly does.

And I know few of my words here or few of those quotes on another page won’t gift you yourself. But all I can do, and want to do, is to open a door for you.

Walking in, is your choice.

Please don’t be afraid of stormy nights. It’s the best thing that could happen to you.

For if there’s no stormy night, there won’t be a rain. For if there’s no rain, there won’t be a home to seed. For if there’s no seed, there won’t be a flower. For if there’s no flower, there won’t be a spring.

I won’t say I have reached the destination- and by the way, who even said it’s about the destination. It’s the journey which the whole soul-searching is about, and I am honoured to say I have at least caught hold of the right train.

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Published by Shivani Baghel

I am an eager, curious cookie in her twenties. My biggest fear in life is to get stuck on doing one thing all my life. I want to do 1000 things in my 100 years of lifetime. I am a dreamer. I believe that there are no problems, people see us as we see ourselves. I have learnt that the simplest things in life are the most beautiful ones.
View all posts by Shivani Baghel